I wonder if this might lead to people who think their cases might be on shaky ground choosing to apply for their documents from abroad, then. Because to pull up another Chinese embassy page, it seems to even more firmly state the PRC's interpretation, as they say as a child of Chinese citizens born in the US you need:

And another page shows they (at least in the US) accept HKID applications if submitted together with HKSAR passport applications.

On the whole, this is quite an interesting development. My current visa doesn't expire for quite a while, and now I need to figure out if I actually do fall under this (want to be absolutely sure, double-checking with parents) and if I want to pursue a CTD in that case (since then I would have no US consular protection anymore).

Don't worry. If they want to detain you, and they have an iota of fact they can use to claim you're a Chinese citizen, they'll use it.

Benefits of citizenship and Hukou have to be fought for, liabilities they'll stick on you like taxes.

The permanent residency of the parent affects the nationality of the child because of the Nationality Law of China. Article 5 states that:

Any person born abroad whose parents are both Chinese nationals or one of whose parents is a Chinese national shall have Chinese nationality. But a person whose parents are both Chinese nationals and have both settled abroad, or one of whose parents is a Chinese national and has settled abroad, and who has acquired foreign nationality at birth shall not have Chinese nationality.

The word settled refers to having obtained indefinite leave to remain, which in the case of the USA is taken to mean permanent residency. However, there is disagreement in the case of two Chinese parents where only one holds permanent residency. China interprets the law such that in this case, the child has no Chinese nationality, while Hong Kong interprets it differently and considers the child to be a Chinese national. The Hong Kong interpretation kicks in when the child interacts with the Hong Kong government, e.g., because one of the parents is a resident of Hong Kong, or if the child becomes a resident of Hong Kong later in life.

Hong Kong interprets this differently in the Lamb case https://legalref.judiciary.hk/lrs/co...%2F11%29&TP=JU - permanency not required so long as parents are on a path to such a permanency.

Yes correct.

That's interesting. A literal interpretation requires both parents to be settled abroad for Article 5 to kick in https://www.immd.gov.hk/eng/resident...inese/law.html . I suppose, this protects children born of a foreign national and Chinese national abroad, there was a breakdown in the relationship after birth and the Chinese parent wants to take the child back to China.

According to the PRC interpretation of Article 5, the child is not a Chinese citizen in this case?

My considerations aren't just from the China side; I can imagine certain types of employment in the US government where my formally having claimed dual citizenship by getting a CTD would cause issues were I to apply.

It's like Mainland citizens acquiring foreign nationaity and not cancelling their Hukous and Chinese passports - can the other government find out?

If the employment I was seeking was something involving a security clearance, absolutely. Guess I won't try to ascend too far up that ladder if I seek government employment.

But in Lamb's case, both parents already had permanent residency at the time of birth:

"In 2005, the parents immigrated to Canada under the skilled worker category and were issued permanent resident cards by the Canadian authority. "

...

"As mentioned above, the applicant was born during the time when the parents were residing in Canada as permanent residents."

https://www.nia.gov.cn/Enquiry/publi...qKim5acw%3D%3D

留言内容您好，我的宝宝在澳洲出生，当时我持有澳洲永久居民签证但未入籍，孩子母亲是留学签证。孩子出生后依照澳洲 法律自动取得澳洲公民，但我们都想让孩子加入中国籍经过了解得等到孩子18岁他自己提出退籍申请才行。我查 阅了相关法律法规对于这种国籍冲突的孩子是可以办理中国旅行证件的，但我去悉尼的中国大使馆却不给与办理。 请问我现在到底能否给孩子办理中国旅行证件？ 谢谢！

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　　您好：
　　您在我们网站上提交的问题收悉，现针对您所提供的信息简要回复如下：
　　根据您提供的情况，按照《国籍法》第五条之规定，您孩子出生时，您已取得澳大利亚永久居留权，孩子出生 即具有澳大利亚国籍，不具有中国国籍。鉴此，您的孩子无法办理中华人民共和国旅行证。根据《国籍法》第七条 规定：外国人或无国籍人，愿意遵守中国宪法和法律，并具有下列条件之一的，可以经申请批准加入中国国籍：一 、中国人的近亲属；二、定居在中国的；三、有其它正当理由。如您孩子符合上述规定情形，可向其所在国的我驻 外使领馆或父母亲内地户籍所在公安机关出入境管理部门提出加入中国国籍申请。
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If you want to eliminate this risk, you'd have to formally renounce your Chinese nationality.

Even if you don't apply for a CTD, you're still a Chinese national by law. So if whatever you're trying to do does not allow dual citizens (e.g., holding political office), then you're already in trouble.

Someone will find out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E...ibility_crisis

It'll depend how deep the Yankee White search goes. jamar is not an obvious dual national - he is a natural born citizen of the United States, and his parents are now either Green Card or US Citizens. Catching they were not US citizens at the time of his birth (and therefore Jamar may still have claim to being Chinese) is rather corner case.

The Australian parliamentarians were born overseas, so they were pretty obvious to catch.

"Permanent resident" of Canada - it seems to work like "Permanent resident" of Australia https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visa...verseas-travel - has no permanence like ILR in the UK or ROA in HK. For Australia "permanent resident", if you aren't here for 5 years, you lose it.

Canadian and Australian "permanent resident" indicates no time limit on their stay in Canada/Australia. But, if they're not there (like Lamb's parents), they lose it.

Oh OK, that's news. So someone on an Australian "permanent resident" visa (e.g. Subclass 801 for my wife) is treated differently from their (rough) US equivalent (e.g. K-3 + I-512 Advance Parole https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip...l ).

This seems like a very substance over form exercise.

(P.S. that also means HK courts are consistent with NIA)

This and the fact that my passport has already had multiple Chinese visas on it due to the previous policy (or maybe more accurately, previous interpretations of the law) and that my parents have never applied for a CTD for me in the past would indicate that I couldn't be expected to know (and I still don't know for sure) I had that claim, is the way I see it. Going into politics or anything requiring a security clearance is off the table but there are certain other things where a potential claim that only arose due to changing interpretations of past law might slip by (basically, cases where having Chinese citizenship as well might invite additional questions but isn't an automatic "no").

Now I wonder how many other people are also revisiting this due to past assumptions (that dual citizenship wasn't possible or wasn't possible past age 18 and choosing to use your foreign passport and getting visas was seen as "making a choice").

Well, quite some countries force you to renounce your citizenship if you take up another one. Not THAT many countries allow dual citizenship, and even for those that due, quite some stringent rules apply.

Two countries in the world even have the audacy to tax you if you're living abroad. One is God's own country, Eritrea, the other is the failed states of "America". Or the other way around, I tend to mix them up.

It's not as uncommon/difficult as you make it out to be. I have quadruple citizenship.

Thread closed pending moderator review.

/mod